ROAD TO REVOLUTION III: The Continuing Struggle Against
Revisionism

A scientific evaluation of history must have as its core the study of revolutionary
movements. We seek to draw upon what is positive in these experiences and to learn from
the negative. Four great revolutions have marked the forward thrust of humanity: the Paris
Commune, the Russian Revolution, the Chinese Revolution, and the Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution (GPCR). Workers and oppressed people have been able to advance because
and only because of these revolutions.

These momentous revolutionary movements were not mystical events. They were all made
and led by masses of people and their leaders. The revolutionary movement of the past
hundred years has been a series of attempts by workers to wrest control of their lives
from the ruling class. Revolution determines the class that holds state power, and each of
these four revolutions attempted to resolve this central question in favor of the
proletariat.

The struggle for state power is inseparable from the struggle between correct and
incorrect ideas about how to win. keep, and consolidate it. The ideological struggle
against revisionism--the ideas and practice of the class enemy within the communist
movement--has taken place since the beginning of the struggle for proletarian revolution.
Revisionism attempts to distort the revolutionary content of Marxism-Leninism. It assumes
many forms; it seeks to ride the revolutionary tide of world history by appearing in
increasingly militant disguise, but its counter-revolutionary essence remains the same.

We believe that the struggle against revisionism has not nearly ended. The struggle
rages in every Marxist-Leninist party and group in the world. No party has avoided it in
the past. No party can avoid it now. No party will avoid it in the future. It will
continue to rage until the realization of world communism. The long term error of the
international communist movement has been right-opportunism.

We should welcome the destruction of the bourgeoisie's ideas just as we welcome the
destruction of the bourgeoisie. If the military struggle for state power must be
protracted, the ideological struggle to keep it will be even more so. In the course of
this fight we will face many twists and turns, many ups and downs, many victories and
defeats. This is not a cause for resignation, passivity, discouragement or cynicism. The
fight against revisionism is a life and death struggle. It cannot be avoided. It has
always advanced the cause of workers and oppressed people. In each period, new advances
are made as revisionism is progressively unmasked. Because the political understanding of
the masses increases, their fighting strength grows. They wrest power from and expose the
ruling class. In the course of ideological and political struggle, they rip away the red
fig-leaf from revisionist bosses. As the battle against revisionism intensifies, the
people prove that they can win and hold state power. The struggle against revisionism is a
protracted process. It is a good thing.

In the context of revolutionary advances and the continuing fight against revisionism,
revolutionaries have made serious errors that have allowed the local capitalist class and
its imperialist allies to regain state power temporarily in some countries. If we
understand them, we can avoid them and defeat revisionism qualitatively. We do not look to
minimize the great accomplishments of the revolutionary movements. Obviously, we could not
carry out this task if others--many others--had not preceded us. We wish especially to
credit the millions in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR) who opened new
ideological horizons for us. We know, however, that revisionism reversed the Soviet
revolution. We know that revolutionary movements in eastern Europe that followed the
Soviet path have all ended badly. We know that the GPCR all along was a mass movement to
defeat China's "red" bourgeoisie and re-establish proletarian dictatorship. And
now we view the spectacle of the Mao Tse-tung leadership pursuing right-wing policies with
a vengeance. Current policies of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have
reversed the revolutionary process in China, and have taken China back on the path of
capitalism. How can such developments occur? How can they be reversed?

THE PARIS COMMUNE

The Paris Commune of 1870-71 was the first great proletarian revolution in history.
Ultimately, it failed and was ruthlessly smashed by the combined efforts of the French and
German bourgeoisie. However, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and others were able to draw heavily on
the experience of the Commune. The Commune clarified in practice for the first time the
content and forms of working class power. It taught Marx and later Lenin four profound
lessons about the revolutionary process:

The need to smash (as opposed to taking over or "appropriating") bourgeois
state power and establish the dictatorship of the proletariat.

The need for equality--particularly economic equality--between revolutionary cadre and
the masses of workers. In one of its first acts, the Commune abolished the gross
discrepancy between the wages of working people and state functionaries.

Immediate recall of leadership by the masses if leaders fail to carry out the desires
and aspirations of the working-class.

The abolition of a bourgeois-type standing army and the distribution of arms to the
masses of people. The Commune correctly foresaw that a standing army could serve as a
"special repressive force" only against the workers and other oppressed people
and not against the bourgeoisie. The workers had made the revolution: they and only they
could defend it.

In State and Revolution, Lenin raised and expanded these points at some length.
He also showed that the class struggle would continue after socialism. The rich
experiences of the Paris Commune provided a source of inspiration to all revolutionaries.
They enabled the world communist movement to take a giant stride forward.

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

The Russian revolution was the first serious attempt by workers and peasants to seize,
hold, and consolidate state power. Prior to the revolution Lenin had written the historic What
Is To Be Done? to fight the right opportunists who would have frittered the revolution
away by relying on spontaneity, by engaging in reform struggles without introducing
communist ideas, and by agitating for a bourgeois-democratic revolution instead of
socialism. Between 1919 and 1921, the revolutionaries made a magnificent and victorious
stand against military intervention by foreign imperialist powers. The masses showed great
courage and determination to defend and build their revolution. It showed that the masses,
the leadership of their revolutionary party, and revolutionary violence on the part of the
working class and peasantry were vital to the seizure of state power.

From its onset, the Russian revolution drew an endless series of attacks from the
international bourgeoisie. The sharpest external form these attacks took was the fascist
invasion of the Soviet Union in 1940. The Soviet struggle against the invasion was a key
factor enabling other revolutions--particularly the Chinese revolution --to develop.
Communists all over the world led the fight against fascism and Nazism. The Soviet Union
was the bulwark of this fight. The armed might of the Nazis, supported by the fascist
"master race" theory, seemed invincible. Yet, the Red Army, the Soviet people,
and the world communist movement smashed this "master race" of fascist
imperialists and its Wehrmacht.

However, this tremendous mass struggle to defeat fascism, which involved hundreds of
millions who were led mainly by the communist movement, did not result in socialism. The
leadership of the international communist movement, led by the Soviet Union, did not
advocate socialism--the dictatorship of the proletariat--as its primary goal. So after the
war western Europe, particularly France and Italy, were handed back to the bourgeoisie.
This was wrong. The workers were armed. They believed in socialism. And they would have
carried the class struggle through to the end. Instead communist leaders advocated the
turning in of guns to the Allied military government, and winning socialism through the
parliamentary process. So capitalism was put back on its feet in western Europe, and it
eventually engulfed eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

In the case of the Soviet Union and these other countries, the roots of revisionism all
converged at the point of granting concessions to the bourgeoisie, concessions that either
allowed the old ruling class to reconquer power or paved the way for the emergence of a
new, "red" bourgeoisie:

In the course of revolutionary struggle prior to the seizure of power, the revolutionary
party falsely divides the bourgeoisie into a "left" and a "right"
camp, calls for an alliance with the "left," and consummates this alliance by
granting the "left" certain privileges such as immunity from expropriation.

This alliance is maintained after the revolution, and the privileges granted to the
"good" wing of the bourgeoisie are extended.

Many of the privileges granted to the bourgeoisie inevitably assume other than purely
economic forms. Economic concessions require prior ideological concessions: if you pay an
architect far more than a bricklayer, a general a lot more than a private, or pay a mayor
20 times more than a peasant, you have to come up with a theory to justify the
discrepancies. One of these ideological concessions is the promotion of nationalism
("Let's all be a little less piggy--all of us, that is, except the bourgeoisie--for
the sake of the nation.") Nationalism is a bourgeois theory. Like the bourgeoisie, it
has no progressive aspects. Lenin and Stalin were consistent in defining nationalism as a
totally reactionary ideology. But they often wrongly suggested that a little nationalism
could be useful.

Revolutionaries view the united front as an alliance between themselves and the
"better" section of the bourgeoisie. Thus, the front unites around a bourgeois
nationalist line as opposed to a revolutionary line for the dictatorship of the workers.
As part of this deal, communists make the biggest concession of all by renouncing the
struggle to win the masses to a socialist program.

One of the principal reasons offered for the above concessions is the assumption that a
large section of the masses--particularly the peasantry--cannot be won to socialism. The
argument is put forth that the socialist revolution must pass through a two-stage process,
the first stage of which will be something other than socialism. The Chinese called this
first stage "New Democracy." Others argued for a-period of bourgeois democracy
that would somehow transform itself into socialism.

The writings of Lenin, Stalin, and Mao are filled with warnings about the inevitability
of a comeback attempt by the bourgeoisie after the revolution. The historical experience
of revolutionary movements seems to validate these warnings without exception. The
bourgeoisie's desire to reverse socialist revolution is constant. Its ability to reverse
socialism depends upon the amount o~ leverage and maneuverability it is left with. Every
time revolutionaries have made concessions to the bosses, the bosses have been able to use
the concessions to regain power.

After the revolution, Russia was decimated. After the defeat of the interventionists,
the Bolsheviks undertook the task of building the first socialist society. Before long,
the leaders of the party decided that the slow pace of socialist construction would lead
to ruination. They contended that the revolution would go down to defeat unless they could
win the "more advanced" members of the old ruling class to cooperate in building
the workers' state. Therefore, sweeping class concessions were in order. Accordingly, in
the twenties, the Bolsheviks began implementing a policy known as NEP (New Economic
Policy).

The NEP called for the reintroduction of capitalist methods, capitalist competition,
and capitalists into the government and economy. The program sought to restrict the
development of capitalism. But communists were assigned to control and nurture this base
of capitalism. Obviously, communists administering capitalist concessions is at least
contradictory. Profits and there fore exploitation were allowed. High living was
tolerated. The equalitarianism that Lenin had admired in the Paris Commune and that he had
called an indispensable aspect of socialism in State and Revolution never truly
came into being. Communist cadre and leaders soon began aping the old bourgeoisie. As the
economic gap increased between them and the people, the ideological gap followed suit. As
this disease progressed, the CP ultimately restored full-blown capitalism to the Soviet
Union. This time the bourgeoisie consisted of CP leaders and the managerial class they
represented. But this new bourgeoisie could not have developed strength to take power
without the concessions initially granted to the old bosses in the twenties. The seeds of
capitalist restoration were already inherent in the NEP.

The transition from socialism to capitalism was a protracted process that unfolded over
many years. The working class held fundamental power during this period. As in all
developments, however, quantity turns into quality. The process of capitalist restoration
was completed around the time of the Twentieth Party Congress in 1956. Led by Khrushchev,
this congress set forth a systematic revisionist program. It called for unity between the
Soviet Union and any party or nation calling itself socialist. According to Khrushchev and
the Twentieth Congress, it was possible and even desirable to envision a peaceful
transition to socialism, because a new period had dawned in which socialism and
imperialism could co-exist non-antagonistically. Socialism would triumph not by force but
by example.

Khrushchev formulated a right-wing attack on the Stalin cult for use as a battering ram
in demolishing Marxism-Leninism. He capitalized on bad errors made by Stalin and other
revolutionaries to obscure his own reactionary ideas. Over the years the Stalin leadership
committed wholesale errors:

Relying on nationalism to defeat the Nazis--thus making the policy of the international
working class subservient to the interests of the Soviet Union. So, nationalism triumphed
over internationalism.

This policy led the Soviets into alliances with the international ruling class. This was
most evident during the war against the Nazis. U.S., British, some French and other bosses
were pictured as progressive forces.

Democratic centralism, which is the only system of revolutionary organization, was
reduced to arbitrary centralism. Friends were not distinguished from enemies. Thus, many
good revolutionaries were killed by the Stalin leadership because they might have had
differences. Many counter-revolutionaries who should have been put down were able to slip
through because of these abuses

Probably the most important error Stalin and others made was not winning masses of
people to Marxism-Leninism. So, an elite held power without much participation by workers
and peasants. Socialism was for the party leaders. The masses were only involved in
carrying out this or that policy. Because these policies seemed progressive at the time,
there was little resistance to them.

When the Khrushchev gang came to power there was only a slight adjustment needed to
consolidate capitalist ways of life and production which had developed over the years. He
capped off his revisionist program by asserting that the Soviet Union had completed
socialist construction and could now undertake the transition to communism and that
therefore the dictatorship of the proletariat had become an obsolete concept to be
superseded by the "state of the whole people." In the space of two generations,
the Soviet Union had turned from a socialist state that allowed "limited"
capitalist enterprise into a fascist dictatorship.

ARE CAPITALISTS MORE WINNABLE TO SOCIALISM THAN PEASANTS?

Soviet concessions to capitalism were predicated upon the assumption that the peasantry
could not be won immediately to socialism. Communist theoreticians devoted many treatises
to the peasants' "backward mentality." Marxist-Leninists claimed that the
peasant was petty-bourgeois, either in his orientation or in his relation to the mode of
production. Given this estimate, revolutionaries reasoned that the peasantry was
unwinnable to socialism without initially passing through a "stage" of bourgeois
democracy. According to this theory, each peasant first had to receive his own plot of
land. Next, some of these plots would be turned into cooperatives. Then the cooperatives
could be developed into collective farms. But even within these transitional phases, each
peasant was entitled to his "own" land, cow, horse, chickens, donkey, etc. In
reality, this bourgeois- democratic "revolution" consigned the vast majority of
peasants to capitalist exploitation. Capitalist production relations breed a capitalist
and nationalist outlook.

When peasants and oppressed people rebelled against imperialism in alliance with
"anti-imperialist" local bosses, Marxist-Leninists supported this alliance. The
theory was that since the fight against the imperialists took precedence over everything,
local bosses in competition with the imperialists could help in building the united front.
In practice, this produced two irreconcilable contradictions: in the first place, it
called upon communists to win the peasantry to capitalism; secondly, it rejected
nationalism as an ideology but often embraced it as a "tactic."

Virtually all the world's peasants and oppressed people are proletarianized. The vast
majority own neither land nor the means of production. This is certainly the case today,
and we believe that it was also the case during Lenin's lifetime. As a worldwide system of
exploitation, imperialism proletarianizes people, whether they work on the land or in
factories.

This development is particularly obvious in our own country. Millions of agricultural
workers in the U.S. are fighting the bosses, not for individual plots of land, but for
higher wages, shorter hours, improved working conditions, etc. These are proletarian class
demands. If properly led, the struggle to win them can help develop socialist
consciousness. In the case of the so-called "colonial" and
"semi-feudal" countries, tremendous economic growth has taken place. It is true
that this growth has developed unevenly. It is also true that workers in the colonial
countries are far more exploited than workers in imperialist countries. But why should
communists attempt to convert these conditions into national capitalism, when this type of
exploitation affords ample opportunity for winning workers and peasants--especially the
most oppressed--to socialism?

History has proved many times that once national liberation movements seize power, they
remain the pawns of imperialism. Algeria, Ghana, Guinea, and other cases all demonstrate
that liberation without proletarian dictatorship is a fairy tale. History has also proved
the futility of attempting to sneak socialism in through the back door. The wreck of Cuba
stands as a living monument to the theory of socialism by deceit. As its economy sinks
yearly and it becomes increasingly dependent on the revisionist Soviet Union, the Cuban
revolution must pay dearly for failing to win the masses to a socialist outlook during the
war against Batista. Withholding socialist ideas from part of the oppressed population
because these ideas appear too "advanced" fatally undermines the development of
socialist society.

The notion that the masses cannot understand socialism and will not fight for it is a
myth that leads to elitism: "only a select few of us can understand such lofty,
complex ideas." This error also compounds racism, because it vindicates the bourgeois
idea that non-white people are too backward and stupid to exercise full social
responsibility. Socialism does not belong to a chosen few; it belongs to the masses. They
must develop socialist ideas, fight for them, and put socialism into practice.
Superficially, this approach may appear more protracted than the old two-stage approach.
In the final analysis, however, it may well prove to be the shorter route. In any event,
we believe, it is the only route.

THE SEVENTH WORLD CONGRESS

The Seventh World Congress of the Communist International in 1935 marked another
turning point for the international communist movement. As the Congress opened, fascism
was spreading throughout Europe. But neither the Congress nor the communist movement in
general called for armed struggle, people's war, or revolution as the only method of
defeating fascism decisively.

Fascism did not arise in Hungary, Italy, Germany, or Japan by fluke or default. Since
these countries all had feeble economies, bourgeois democracy proved too weak a form for
effective political control. The Bolshevik revolution and the world communist movement it
helped generate made fascism necessary for the bourgeoisie. Intervention in 1919-21 had
failed to destroy the Soviet Union. Consequently, the world bourgeoisie decided to
establish fascism in certain strategic countries as a more violent form of anti-communism
than bourgeois democracy. The imperialists armed Germany and Japan to the teeth. They
entrusted Japan with the mission of fighting communism in Asia and Germany with the
mission of fighting it in Europe and destroying it in Russia.

The Seventh World Congress divided the imperialists into fascist and anti-fascist camps
and proposed a united front with the same bourgeois-democrats who had helped bring fascism
into being. The social-democrats--the most rabid anti-communists on the pseudo left--were
viewed as co-leaders of the united front.

In reality, both fascism and bourgeois democracy are forms of capitalist dictatorship.
Both are equally counter-revolutionary. Neither can be smashed without proletarian
revolution. If revolution was not imminent at the time of the Congress, revolutionary
preparation and agitation--not alliances with "good" bourgeois democrats--should
have been the order of the day. The parliamentary tactics adopted by the Seventh Congress
served only to create the fatal illusion that fascism could be prevented without armed
struggle. By systematizing unity with the "better" section of the bourgeoisie,
the Congress strangled the communist movement and substituted opportunism for communist
tactics. A world war was necessary to defeat fascism. Although the bourgeois-democratic
imperialists intervened with their armies, communist-led armed struggle by the masses was
the decisive factor.

However, the communist movement failed to give this struggle revolutionary leadership.
Because the Seventh Congress did not make a correct distinction between friends and
enemies, it put forth the revisionist "main danger" theory. The Soviets tried to
forestall Hitler's invasion by making a pact with him. He double-crossed them. Then they
entered into a full-blown alliance with the liberal imperialists who had initially
sponsored Hitler and whom Hitler had also double-crossed. This alliance served to deepen
illusions about qualitative differences among imperialists: since Hitler was the
"worst," the others must be "better." The Chinese Communist Party
still pursues this idea.

The line of the Seventh World Congress and the line of modern revisionism are
essentially the same. They fail to grasp that although contradictions exist within the
bourgeoisie, bourgeois class unity always predominates in the case of opposition to
communism. This was a big lesson from the Paris Commune. Therefore, they fail to see that
liberal bourgeois democracy feeds and develops anti-communism and fascism. Now, after
decades of "lesser evil" imperialists, the CCP has taken the theory a step
further by advancing the concept of "lesser evil" revisionists: the Soviets are
the "worst;" the others are "better."

The "lesser evil" line has two main consequences: it either prevents
revolutionary movements from seizing power or causes parties in power to restore
capitalism. Today's Soviet Union furnishes a developed example of the latter consequence.
Today, the only struggle conducted by the Soviet bosses is for a senior partnership in the
international bourgeoisie. They are aided in this quest by the opportunism of the CCP.

The Soviet bosses must be treated like any other section of the bourgeoisie. Lenin's
idea of recall by the masses might have been feasible when the Soviet Union was still a
socialist state, but the party leadership had eliminated this idea in the earliest stages
of the revolution. Since the masses were too "backward" to understand socialism,
they were also too "backward" to understand the "need" for
reintroducing limited capitalism or for allying with the "lesser evil" section
of the bourgeoisie. In a word, they couldn't be trusted.

Today, the Soviet bosses have less reason than ever to trust the masses, because the
masses now need to "recall" all of them by means of violent revolution.
Overthrowing the Soviet leadership is a necessary and desirable goal. Revolutions are
bound to erupt in all the former socialist countries.

THE CHINESE REVOLUTION

Once proletarian dictatorship had been established in Russia, one-sixth of the world's
land surface, the international relationship of forces changed irrevocably in the
direction of revolution. Millions of communists and their supporters were actively engaged
in political struggle from one end of the earth to another. A vibrant communist movement
had begun to develop in China. Despite certain key mistakes in the initial period, the
party and the revolutionary masses had grown in numbers and strength. By the late 1940s,
they had won control of the Chinese mainland and established the dictatorship of the
proletariat.

The Chinese revolution proved conclusively that a non-industrial country could move
directly to socialism. Heretofore, many Marxist-Leninists had thought that socialist
revolution was feasible only in countries with an industrial development at least on a par
with Russia before 1917. Although China had some industry and therefore also a small
working class, the number of city-dwelling workers was small before and during the
revolution. But Mao Tse-tung and others understood that the peasantry could be a
revolutionary force and unite with workers in the cities to seize power.

Nearly thirty years elapsed between the founding of the CCP and the seizure of power.
Therefore, Mao correctly pointed to the need for an outlook of protracted struggle.
Organized armed struggle led by a communist party was one of the main aspects of the
struggle. And Mao always insisted that revolutionaries must never surrender their weapons
to local nationalists.

This titanic battle helped clarify and enrich many other important revolutionary
concepts, such as party building, cadre training and development, inner-party struggle,
etc. The success of the Chinese revolution threw imperialism--especially U.S.
imperialism--into a panic. By 1949, another huge section of the world had gone over to the
revolutionary camp. Asia had taken its first qualitative step away from colonialism and
imperialism. Mao's statement that the "east wind prevails over the west wind"
summarizes this historic development.

However, the Chinese revolutionaries never broke with theold policy of
concessions to the so-called "progressive" bourgeoisie. On the contrary, they
implemented it with a vengeance, so their revolution stood on wobbly legs from the outset.
In the Soviet Union, this policy did not begin to develop fully until after the
revolution. In China, on the other hand, it reached maturity well before the seizure of
power. In the course of the anti-Japanese war, the CCP made alliances with large sections
of the "national" bourgeoisie. As usual, these alliances required serious
ideological and economic concessions. One of the most important was the CPC's willingness
to curtail its open advocacy of proletarian dictatorship and socialism.

After wresting power from the "right-wing" nationalists, Mao called for a
period of "New Democracy," a supposed joint dictatorship of four revolutionary
classes, including the "progressive national bourgeoisie." We do not believe
that a state commonly ruled by several classes ever existed in China or any other country,
or that it will ever exist anywhere. In the modern epoch, either the proletariat or the
bourgeoisie, and no one else, is capable of wielding state power. What actually existed in
China during the "New Democratic" period was essentially proletarian
dictatorship. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) was led by communists, and the party was
the only effectively functioning political instrument in China.

The "theory" of New Democracy served merely as a tactic to justify the
serious concessions made by the party to the bourgeoisie. New Democracy was nothing more
or less than the Chinese version of the NEP. New Democracy enabled the bourgeoisie to
acquire footing and maneuverability in the party, the state apparatus, and the economy.
Small wonder, then, that educational institutions never changed their class character or
that after nearly twenty years of proletarian dictatorship, Chinese culture was primarily
bourgeois.

THE GREAT PROLETARIAN CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Like the Paris Commune, the Soviet revolution, and the first Chinese revolution, the
principal question raised by the GPCR was the class nature of state power. By the early
sixties, the ferocity of class struggle in China had begun to intensify dramatically. The
concessions granted to the bourgeoisie by the policy of New Democracy had enabled a new
ruling class to emerge and gain ascendancy. It differed in form from the old ruling class,
but its capitalist essence remained identical. The heart of this new ruling class was the
party itself. In the space of a few short years, the CCP had turned into its opposite.
Virtually all of its leading cadre had become a "red" bourgeoisie. The GPCR
therefore constituted an effort on the part of the masses to win power back from these
revisionists.

The GPCR erupted within the framework of a worldwide anti-revisionist struggle
apparently led by the CCP. In the late fifties, the CCP launched a significant attack
against Soviet revisionism and Yugoslav opportunism. But this attack was not
comprehensive. It took aim at several branches of revisionism without digging deep enough
to ferret out its roots. The Soviet Union had become revisionist because it had repudiated
armed struggle and was now calling for peaceful coexistence with imperialism. This
criticism was correct-- but only as far as it went. During this entire period, the CCP
never critically examined socialist construction in the Soviet Union or China, never
repudiated the theory of concessions to the bourgeoisie, and never conducted an all-out
ideological struggle against nationalism and the 7th World Congress.

Given the nature of the CCP, a thorough evaluation of these questions was
inconceivable. Why should China's "red" bourgeoisie have put into question the
very principles that had helped foster its development as a class? China's red bourgeoisie
didn't fundamentally oppose revisionism; it attacked the Soviets because the Chinese
masses were too advanced politically to swallow the obviously right-wing line of the CPSU.
A more militant left cover was necessary in order to restore capitalism in China. The only
hitch came when the Chinese masses began to take seriously the idea of overthrowing the
bourgeoisie and reconquering state power.

The GPCR helped inject a number of vital ideas into the world revolutionary movement:

The absolute primacy of political incentives over material incentives. From the earliest
days of the Bolshevik revolution, Soviet leaders were convinced that the masses could be
won to socialism only if they were impelled by the promise of special material rewards.
The Soviet leaders reasoned that a worker would be willing to increase his production if
he received additional pay for producing over the norm. Correspondingly, it was felt that
peasants would also produce more if they owned a part of the land they worked. The same
system had developed in China. In the course of the GPCR, the left mass movement tried to
smash it.

The primacy of politics over technique. The GPCR demonstrated that the prime requisite
for socialism was not a bevy of "experts" or technocrats but rather the masses'
understanding and implementation of socialist ideas.

Intensified struggle against revisionism. One of the slogans advanced by the left during
the GPCR was "no aid from revisionists." China's own experience had shown that
Soviet "aid" would lead to its opposite by creating illusions about revisionism
and diluting the class struggle. The left also stated its opposition to negotiations with
revisionists and imperialists.

Intensified struggle against imperialism and its nationalist stooges. The left and the
masses led a series of attacks on imperialist diplomats residing in China. Chinese workers
laid siege to the British "crown colony" of Hong Kong. These developments helped
strengthen revolutionary movements in Asia and the West. The revisionists and imperialists
were always babbling that Peking was "isolated from the community of nations."
The left said that isolation from imperialists like DeGaulle or stooges like Sihanouk was
just fine because it was a necessary condition for unity with revolutionary forces,
workers and oppressed people around the world.

The revolutionary doctrine that the masses are more important than weapons and can
defeat any imperialist war, including nuclear war. The U.S. imperialists and Soviet
revisionists increased their war provocations against China during the GPCR. The GPCR was
not intimidated. It took the line: "China will never launch a nuclear war or any war
of aggression. Despite the apparent superiority of your weapons, the Chinese people and
the workers and oppressed people of the world are invincible. Imperialism and revisionism
will be crushed. Start your war--we will finish it."

The Chinese masses took many of these ideas in dead earnest and attempted to act upon
them. A large organized movement developed against Soviet aid to Vietnam. Shipment after
shipment of Soviet arms was derailed by left forces in the GPCR. The purpose of these
actions was to show revolutionary solidarity with the people of Vietnam by opposing the
machinations of the revisionists. Only the direct, violent intervention of the Mao
Tse-Tung controlled People's Liberation Army was able to put a stop to this movement.

Underlying the GPCR was the premise that the class struggle grows sharper after the
seizure of power. The GPCR was a struggle for state power. It proved that workers and
revolutionaries must fight back to win power away from the "red" bourgeoisie and
keep the red flag of revolution in the vanguard of the mass movement.

Various forces allied with Mao Tse-tung have portrayed the GPCR as "personally led
and initiated" by Mao. This is a myth. The GPCR really began in the late fifties,
when masses of people rebelled against the new "red" bourgeoisie and attempted
to implement a program for drastic change in Chinese society. The commune movement of the
fifties was one of the first expressions of this struggle. Although the commune movement
was identified with Mao, it was crushed while he dominated the Chinese political scene.

Two distinct elements participated in the GPCR: a left, represented by certain forces
in the party, by the Red Guard movement, and by revolutionary workers' councils; and a
right, represented by Mao Tse-tung and Liu Shao-chi. The initial actions of the GPCR had
nothing to do with Mao. One of the first struggles launched by the pre-Red Guard movement
was a rebellion against revisionism at Peking University. This movement and the workers'
movement rapidly grew into huge mass phenomena. Mao and the forces allied with him used
them in a struggle against the more exposed rightists like Liu and P'eng Ch'en.

The only differences between Mao and Liu centered around the question of whether or not
China would continue its development along the Soviet line. Some of Liu's friends who were
Marshals in the PLA wanted to build the Chinese army with Russian weapons, thereby making
China economically and militarily dependent on the Soviet Union. Mao and his allies wanted
the Chinese economy to develop independently of the Soviet Union. They wanted to produce
their own brand of national revisionism. Led by Mao, they used the revolutionary mass
movement as a battering ram to drive the very exposed right-wingers like Liu out of the
party. But the masses wanted to drive out the entire party leadership. This was the
necessary condition for seizing back state power and the means of production. Mao uttered
left formulations and issued left directives to ingratiate himself with the masses and win
their confidence. But every time the masses went "too far" in carrying out his
instructions, he immediately called upon the PLA to beat them into submission.

Liu and his associates were used as scapegoats. Many of the errors pinned on the
"black gang" were errors made by Mao Tse-tung. During the thirties Mao had said
not to advocate the dictatorship of the proletariat; Mao advocated concessions to
landlords and other businessmen in order to win them to the anti- Japanese struggle; Mao
called for. alliances with every kind of nationalist fink.

The left of the GPCR wanted to model socialism in China after the principles of the
Paris Commune. By establishing himself as the "symbol" of these principles, Mao
was able to deceive much of the left. His own apparatus and many honest forces in the mass
movement worked swiftly to elevate him to the status of demi-god. He became the "red
sun in our hearts" and it was discovered that he had never said or done anything
wrong. He got away with this by giving lip service to the revolutionary aspirations of the
masses.

Mao helped put his man Lin Piao in charge of the armed forces. In this way, he
succeeded in creating the impression that the GPCR was being carried out within the PLA.
According to opportunists, the PLA had already become "a great school of Mao Tse-Tung
Thought"; therefore any disruptions in it would be harmful to China's stability and
would render China vulnerable to external attacks from the imperialists and revisionists.

After Mao's rapid ascension to divinity, his authority was enormous. The political
self-reliance of the masses could not possibly have developed in these circumstances. Bit
by bit, Mao methodically whittled away the reforms initiated by the GPCR and dismantled
the organizations that had led the fight to win them. He dispersed the Red Guards and
other leftists. He removed those leaders of the GPCR who opposed him or who
"mistakenly" persisted in "ultra-leftist" thinking. He distorted the
great slogan "serve the people" until it became indistinguishable from the
slogan "serve Mao."

In the initial phase of the GPCR, when the masses said they wanted to drag out all the
power holders, they meant concretely that 90 percent of the senior party cadre should
"stand aside." Mao claimed, however, that only 5 percent of the cadre were
hopeless right-wingers. He said that since 95 percent were good, they could be
rehabilitated and re integrated into the party. This fable completely contradicted the
aims of the GPCR. In addition, Mao called for a non-violent revolution, although he
accurately described the GPCR as a class struggle for state power. But Marxist-Leninists,
including the left of the GPCR, know that there is no such thing as a non-violent
revolution. The class struggle for state power has never been peaceful; it was not
peaceful during the GPCR and it will never be peaceful.

Backed by the prestige of Mao's vast authority and the power of the PLA, the
opportunists were able to impose the old revisionist methods in China. A clearly
revisionist foreign policy began to emerge. Since then, it has rapidly progressed further
rightward. In 1967, masses of workers and students threw snowballs at the French
ambassador in Peking. In 1968, hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Peking to support the
French worker-student rebellion. But by 1970, the leaders of the Chinese party and state
were holding "cordial talks" with Pompidou's emissaries, and Chairman Mao
"personally led and initiated" the sending of a heart struck letter of
condolence to Mme. DeGaulle. This loveletter was the symbol of New Democracy on a world
wide scale. According to the CCP, DeGaulle had been independent of U.S. imperialism.
Therefore his memory should be revered. His role in suppressing the same worker-student
rebellion that the Chinese masses had rallied to defend was conveniently overlooked. The
Chinese leadership has now entered into negotiations with the Soviets, whom the GPCR
characterized as "worse than Hitler." The CCP gave Yahya Khan $20,000,000 worth
of aid for the Pakistani bosses. Then the Pakistani army met rebelling workers on the
steps of the palace in the capital with Chinese tanks and guns. The CCP had given arms to
the Pakistani rulers because of their feud with the Indian bourgeoisie, which was allied
with U.S. imperialism and Soviet revisionism. The Pakistani bourgeoisie was in competition
with it. Therefore, the Pakistanis were "better," and the Indians were the
"bigger enemy." But as is always the case when this revisionist line is applied,
the main enemy of the opportunists in Peking proved to be the masses themselves.

Because the CCP never really broke with the old policies that eventually led to
revisionism, some of the ideas it now advances to explain developments in the Soviet Union
and China are inadequate. The CCP says that the "black gang" of capitalist
roaders (i.e. the right led by Liu) have been rotten for decades, and that a
"handful" of them usurped power before the GPCR. Mao's only self-criticism is
that, some years ago, he allowed himself to be outmaneuvered by them and kicked upstairs.
Although Mao's critique of Liu contains many correct points, it fails to explain how Liu
managed to become top dog in the state. This critique is unprincipled and opportunist,
because Mao nowhere explains why he and Liu held many of the same political positions
during the thirties and forties. Because the CCP never correctly analyzed its own
development or the development of revisionism in the Soviet Union, it has not solved this
problem.

Therefore, it is no surprise that the GPCR has been crushed and the changes fought for
in China have been reversed. It is no surprise that the momentary left direction of
China's foreign policy has turned into its opposite? and that Chinese foreign policy is
now to the right of the right-wing Bandung Conference program of the fifties. Additionally
the CCP never mounted an anti revisionist attack on the Cubans, the North Koreans, or the
North Vietnamese. Why should it? Le Duan, Castro, and Kim Il Sung are faithfully carrying
out Chairman Mao's thesis of New Democracy.

Consequently, it is a very logical development that the Mao Tse-tung leadership moves
for accommodation with U.S. imperialism. How ironic that the CCP feverishly tries to get
into the U.S.-Soviet imperialist's UN, after giving the ex-Indonesian leader, Sukarno,
roses for leaving it. During the GPCR the CCP attacked the UN. They carefully explained
the class role it played in the world. And they were emphatic that they had no intention
of trying to get into this nest of vipers. Obviously, the CCP has changed its policy of
reliance on the masses to reliance on the world's bourgeoisie. The rationale is to prevent
an attack on China, but this policy has never worked on its own terms. It has subverted,
confused and held back revolutionaries.

We would be guilty of the same error committed by the CCP in analyzing the roots of
revisionism, however, if we ascribed the defeat of the GPCR and the present right drift of
Chinese policy to Mao's errors alone. The key error in the GPCR was made by the left, when
it failed to separate itself ideologically and organizationally from Mao. It tolerated and
in some cases encouraged the anti-Marxist Mao cult. The principal task in China remains
the overthrow of the "red" bourgeoisie. If the left is to give leadership in
accomplishing this task, it must regroup and irrevocably split from Mao & Co. This is
the only course that can lead to the realization of the excellent slogans advanced by the
GPCR: serve the people; no "aid" from revisionists; no negotiations with
revisionists and imperialists; support only the broad revolutionary masses; bombard the
headquarters; drag out the power-holders; draw a clear line between us and the enemy; and
no unity of action with revisionists.

We are convinced that the defeat of the GPCR is temporary. This profound revolution
enriched Marxism-Leninism and enabled the international communist movement to advance. We
would never have been able to discuss many of the ideas in this report without the forward
thrust of left forces during the GPCR. True, Mao and his group were able to turn the
left's own weaknesses against itself, but in order to do so, he had to popularize left
ideas and slogans to millions. We believe in these ideas and slogans. They light the way
forward for our party, and we must strive to carry them out.

INFALLIBILITY AND THE CULT OF THE INDIVIDUAL

We have already attempted to show how this bourgeois concept helped reverse the GPCR.
The myth of leaders' infallibility has been a millstone around the neck of the communist
movement for decades. Cultism and the doctrine of infallibility did not originate with the
struggle for proletarian dictatorship. They have appeared down through the ages and have
affected every aspect of social life. This reactionary doctrine thwarts the political
development of the masses. Since someone "up there" does our thinking for us,
why should we bother to do it ourselves? It takes political power out of the hands of the
masses. It encourages bourgeois individualism, by urging the masses to seek individual
self-improvement through emulation of the "infallible one."

Khrushchev attacked the Stalin cult from the right, in order to discredit
Marxism-Leninism and secure political power for the new Soviet bourgeoisie. We attack the
cult from the left, in order to serve the masses and win socialism. We believe in a
revolutionary working-class party directly tied to the masses and controlled by them. We
believe in democratic-centralism. We believe in leadership that sets proletarian
dictatorship and socialism as its goal. We believe in criticism and self-criticism by all
party members and leaders. We view infallibility and cultism as class questions.

Today the U.S. ruling class consciously uses cultism to impede the growth of the left.
The bosses are only too happy to use their media to build up a left leader. They would
like to turn his head, transform him into a celebrity, and thereby separate him from the
masses. By using cultism, extreme egoism, and individualism, the bosses try to determine
the identity of the people's leaders and the content of their leadership. The bosses
choose certain "leaders" and slate them for instant stardom. Suddenly, everyone
is reading their books or watching their interviews on the tube. Then, when the bosses
decide they need a fresh image, they shunt these gurus into oblivion by shutting them off
the tube and publishing someone else's books.

In the final analysis, we must decide once and for all who is the prime motive force in
history: individuals or the masses.

PERIOD OF WARS AND REVOLUTIONS

Many people will say that PL is arrogant and cruel: "They sit on their asses and
say it was wrong to make this concession or that one. Do they want people to fight and
starve endlessly?" The masses--not we--have already answered this question. If
everything had been hunky-dory in China, why did the GPCR erupt? How come the people of
Vietnam rebelled and built their revolutionary movement after the 1946 negotiations with
the French? How come they rebelled again and built an even stronger movement after the
Geneva accords? Both China and the Soviet Union signed the 1954 Geneva agreement to break
up Vietnam. They relied on imperialist promises of free election guaranteed by the UN. But
the South Vietnamese people never went along with this sellout. Before the ink had dried
on the Geneva agreement, they were organizing and fighting. Ho Chi Minh didn't organize
them. He and the other Vietnamese leaders latched onto their movement only after it had
become the fact of life. These revisionists made sure the Vietnamese revolution would
remain well within the bounds of nationalism and bourgeois democracy.

The people never accept betrayal. They always see through it and fight back. Even on
its own terms humanism fails, because every time "humanitarian" arguments are
induced to bring about negotiations, the people have to pay a stiffer price after the
inevitable sellout. They are left with the same rotten, murderous exploitation that they
attempted to smash in the first place. They often have to rebuild their movement from
scratch. Their fight for socialism becomes longer and harder than it would have been
without the betrayal. But no deal, no concession can stop this fight. Nothing can.

Every time revolutionaries foist a nationalist hack like Sihanouk on the backs of the
people, the people must pay a high price to get rid of him. How many Indonesians did
Sukarno's line enable the bosses to slaughter? Yet the. Chinese hailed Sukarno. There is
no correct way to unite with nationalists or imperialists. Where did such unity ever
advance the cause of revolution? During the GPCR, the masses rejected this old, wrong,
despicable policy. They will do so again.

In this period, the mounting contradictions faced by U.S. imperialism are embodied in
its economic, political, and military weaknesses. Contradictions in revisionist countries
are helping to intensify class antagonisms. Revolutionary ideology will strengthen its
foothold among the masses, and the revolutionary process will spread internationally.
Imperialism and revisionism cannot stop this process. For this reason, we say that the
present period is one of wars and revolutions.

We hope and work for more revolutions. We welcome mass armed struggle. Conditions for
sharper, more serious struggle are constantly maturing in the U.S. We believe that nuclear
blackmail as it was used by the Soviets during the Sino-Soviet border clashes won't work.
It may have scared Chou En-lai & Co. to back down. But it will not intimidate the
masses. The left in China and the rest of the world will not be bamboozled by any kind of
blackmail. The GPCR and the initial stages of people's war in Vietnam have shown that in
the period that has seen great increases in the sophistication of imperialist weaponry and
in imperialist ferocity, revolutionary struggle has taken giant strides forward.

UNITED FRONT AT ALL TIMES

We reject the concept of a united front with bosses, revisionists, Trotskyists and the
herd of various fakes on the left. We believe in a united front from below that takes the
form of a left-center coalition. Many people in our country are ready to grasp socialist
ideas now. The contradictions between them and their leaders are increasing daily. In
addition, there are many millions of good people who have no basic organizational or
political allegiance to the bourgeoisie. In some cases, the party can help organize groups
and work with them around questions of immediate interest. In other cases, we can attempt
to ally with groups that already exist. We may also ally with formations within national
or state organizations that separate themselves from the policies of their
liberal-imperialist or revisionist "leaders." The united front necessarily
assumes the organizational form of an alliance between ourselves and other groups. Within
this alliance, we must implement the policy of "struggle with--struggle
against."

We also work within reactionary groups if they have a hold on significant numbers of
people. But this is not united front work. The purpose of our presence in such groups is
to win their membership to socialism and our party, not to build the groups.

The political basis of the united front is our mass line on whatever issue workers and
others deem important at any given moment. At present, the fight against racist
unemployment constitutes the principal aspect of our mass line. Our participation in this
fight enables us to make a united front with many different forces. Without a mass line,
the united front is meaningless. We know that the masses are always embroiled in struggle.
We attempt to raise the level of political consciousness both within and outside the mass
movement. We should never separate ourselves from the people by abstaining from the class
struggle. A party that doesn't fight dries up and dies. A party that doesn't bring
communist ideas into the movement isn't a communist party: at best, it is a reform group.

We can best support the people's struggles by fighting for socialism and by defeating
revisionism. This approach is as applicable to wars of liberation as it is to the fight at
home for more jobs. The best support we can give our comrades in Vietnam is to struggle
for the U.S. to get out now, to organize for the defeat of imperialism at home and in
Vietnam, and to reject revisionism in the U.S., Vietnam, and everywhere else.

The united front is a critical form for winning people to socialist consciousness.
Ultimately, no struggle can succeed unless its goal is proletarian dictatorship and the
only way to win proletarian dictatorship is to defeat imperialism and revisionism.

There are many questions around which the mass struggle is raging. These include:
unemployment, wages, prices, taxes, more schools, improved medical care, racism, war, and
living conditions. Within these struggles we can link the fight for reforms to the need
for socialism. Most people in our country are not yet for socialism. However, many more
people than we ever dreamed of are open to struggle for working class ideas for workers'
power. In doing this we can avoid the old error of creating illusions that capitalism can
reform itself; and we can avoid the old Trotskyite error of separating ourselves from the
struggle of all people. We are a working class party. No struggle is meaningless to us. No
struggle is something that belongs to other people whom we are just helping out. We need
to fight on all questions of principle. Socialism is not just something we need: it is
necessary for the survival of our class.

OUR ERRORS

In the past, we have been too reticent in seeking out and working with other forces in
the international movement. We have been slow in raising support for the class struggles
conducted by workers in other countries. However, we know that each struggle abroad is
interrelated to struggle in the U.S. We also know that communism can't advance with a bad
line.

Over the years we have been guilty of many of the same errors made by the CCP. In our
earlier period we supported many nationalists at home and abroad. We were unable to make
the correct link-up between nationalism--the "militant" variety--and capitalism.
We believed that "revolutionary" nationalism as espoused by a Malcolm X, Robert
Williams or a Sukarno or Boumedienne type would be a transition belt from capitalism to
socialism. Sometimes we arrived at these erroneous conclusions ourselves, or we were
guilty of following the CCP policies unquestioningly.

In doing this we deluded ourselves into taking incorrect class positions. This cop-out
from the ideological struggle often led us into making racist errors. It was our belief
that most black and minority workers couldn't be won to socialist ideas. Hence, we didn't
engage in sharp ideological struggle. Many black and minority people who were won to the
party drifted away as they recognized that the party had two standards for black and
white. White members had to believe in socialism; minority members could believe in
anything they wanted. Naturally, they reasoned if the party had a nationalist outlook why
did you need a party in the first place. After all, many non- communists in the mass
movement advocated many national reforms.

The other side of the coin was reached when we rejected nationalism as a bourgeois
outlook. Then many of our members developed a racist pattern. Many considered everyone an
enemy who had a nationalist outlook. In every section of the people there is acceptance of
many ruling class ideas. If they all were our enemies we would all disappear. To the
extent nationalism is a mass phenomenon it is a response to racism. We have found that it
isn't that difficult to win many people away from a nationalist outlook. Not to do so
would result in the vilest racism. Additionally, if we accept the point that many, if not
most, white workers are racists whom we should have nothing to do with, we would lose by
default. This inverse racism would be an acceptance of the status-quo.

Another serious error we made was to take a superficial view of the CCP's fight against
Soviet revisionism. We didn't seriously question the limited nature of the struggle
against revisionism. We were too content to hear the Chinese berate Khrushchev instead of
analyzing, ourselves, the fundamental reasons for Soviet opportunism.

So when the GPCR was launched we didn't question it sufficiently. While we questioned
the adulation of Mao, and the fact that workers were not immediately in the leadership of
the GPCR, and that many of the errors attributed to Liu were errors made by Mao, we were
satisfied that Mao and Co. were going in the right direction. We weren't able to see the
trends in the mass movement, or that Mao and others were really right-wingers wrapping
themselves in a red flag. We couldn't see how the Mao Tse-tung leadership was taking away
the initiative of the left in order to put over a right line.

We weren't sharp enough in drawing the proper lessons from Mao's one-sided support of
the Hanoi and National Liberation Front leaders, who held many positions which were
contrary to the CCP. For example, the Vietnamese supported Soviet revisionists and took
Soviet "aid." They supported counterrevolutionary actions like the Soviet
invasion of Czechoslovakia. Hanoi opportunists never fought revisionism. They always
sought to unify Peking and Moscow. Obviously, they knew more than we did. We had illusions
about the Mao leadership. Ho Chi Minh must have understood that the differences between
China and the Soviet Union-- as well as differences between Mao and Liu--were secondary.

Another area in which we erred for some time was our method of relying on the masses.
Our practice was limited. In the past two years we have begun to reach out to workers and
all people opposed to the ruling class in a much larger way with communist ideas. The
response has been excellent. More workers have come into or drawn closer to the Party.
While we have improved in putting forward our ideas in a much more vigorous and consistent
way we have not yet achieved what is possible.

Still too little time is spent in winning workers to communism, either through mass
agitation or mass struggle. And only by overcoming our weaknesses in building united
fronts and base-building can we correct this shortcoming. Either we rely and have
confidence in workers or we perish. Either we become communists where we work, live or go
to school or we will be reduced to perpetual outsiders.

Thus, the main way revisionism appears in our party is to the degree we do not
implement our line on basebuilding. It is to the degree our sectarianism separates us from
the workers. The kernel of our line is reliance on the workers. But how can we rely on
them if we have little or no base among them? While we have made important strides these
past two years, many people are still lagging by the wayside.

During the last two years we made an important breakthrough in the battle against
revisionism. We brought socialist ideas to masses of workers, and we involved ourselves
with thousands. Workers, by the thousands, are interested in our party and socialism.
However, most workers are not ready to launch a socialist revolution now. They are ready
to fight like hell on many immediate grievances. To abstain from these fights would be to
reduce socialism to an abstraction. There would be no way to win people to the need for
socialist revolution, and to show how the fight for reforms by itself can never solve
workers' problems.

If we are sectarian or without ties to people we can spout our line all we want. We
will get no place. We will dry up and disappear. Too many people still have a
"metoo" outlook--that is, a capitalist outlook. They hide their anti-working
class feelings or their fear of the workers behind "correct" slogans. A
holier-than-thou attitude sometimes prevails. Secondary matters become primary in the
absence of a base. Many people still view Marxism-Leninism as their property. They are
unwilling to bring it to workers, learn from them and enrich Marxism-Leninism. We cannot
tolerate isolated members. We. cannot tolerate members who hang onto their base like
money. The purpose of a political base is to bring more workers into leadership in the
fight against the bosses. Most of our subjective weaknesses like fear and individualism
can be corrected within the framework of base-building.

Our party wants to be involved and leading events. But we want to involve millions in
the Marxist-Leninist process. Only the workers have the power and understanding to win and
secure state power. History has taught us the bitter lesson that a party can grow, can
lead struggles, and even hold power temporarily. But it will lose out if millions upon
millions of workers aren't imbued with socialist consciousness, and take part in the
political planning and direction of the party. The more people who are involved in
leadership and party building the better. We reject socialism by deceit, by inches, by an
elite, etc. We reject reliance on the ruling class--any section of it. We rely only on
workers all over the world. The working class is one international class with the need to
crush each section of the international bourgeoisie until the entire ruling class is
finished. This is not a bookkeeper's approach. It is an approach which demands the unity
of all workers at the highest level. It calls upon all workers to be won to Marxism-
Leninism.

SUMMARY

Undoubtedly, our ideas will be attacked as heresy. However, we have the ability to act
on our mass line. Carrying out our line in practice is the decisive way to prove its
validity. Every time we move our asses one tiny bit to bring our line to workers, they
receive it enthusiastically. Our confidence in our ideas and our ability to make progress
are closely tied to continued basebuilding for the party in the working class. Our party
won't grow if it doesn't initiate struggles, if it doesn't stand in the forefront of all
struggles, and if it doesn't build united fronts with those who are prepared to join with
us on specific issues or sets of issues. If we don't serve the people, we are useless or
harmful to them. Therefore, in the coming period, we must carry out the following tasks:

Root out all ideas that lead to alliances with the ruling class. Reject alliances that
lead to ideological concessions now and economic concessions later. They can only turn us
into a revisionist organization.

Steel ourselves and our friends to recognize and avoid nationalist traps. This can best
be accomplished by fighting racism.

Make sure that the dictatorship of the proletariat and socialism are always put forward
in all party agitation.

Wipe out all vestiges of cultism. Intensify the struggle against individualism in
ourselves. As a start, the Central Committee has approved the idea of suppressing the
glorification of individual images that may arise in the party. Every member of the party
must be able to present the party line. We do not believe in relying on the verbal or
political dexterity of a few "experts."

Intensify our mass work. Struggle on issues. Build the united front as a left-center
coalition. Win people to the Party. Build the unemployment movement.

Improve and expand our international work. Build international unity.

We have every reason to believe that by discussing, applying, and enriching this line,
our party will deepen its ties to workers in this country and internationally. We have a
world to learn--and a world to win.